EXCLUSIVE: Ashley Hamilton is in talks to play Firepower, one of the villains in IRON MAN 3, Marc Graser and Jeff Sneider report. In the Marvel comicbooks, the character is the pilot of an experimental armored suit, built by the government, under the secret Project: Firepower project. He eventually uses the suit to battle Iron Man. Thesp, the son of George Hamilton, stepson of Rod Stewart and himself a singer-songwriter, competed on the ninth season of “Dancing with the Stars” before becoming a correspondent on “Extra.” Plot will borrow elements from Warren Ellis’ six-issue “Iron Man: Extremis,” which also influenced the first IRON MAN installment, and focuses on the spread of a virus through nanotechnology.

I'm guessing that Firepower will be the first villain that battles against Iron Man, and later Ben Kensley's character (probably a revised version of The Mandarin) will step up as the final baddie to end the movie with.

__________________"I know I'm asking a lot, but the price of freedom is high, it always has been, and it's a price I'm willing to pay. And if I'm the only one, then so be it. But I'm willing to bet I'm not." - Captain America

Makes you also wonder how Dale's Eric Savin works into the movie also. There's now a couple character known for being cyborgs or suit wearers so it kind of looks as if they could also take some cues from possibly the "Armor Wars" storyline.

Maybe they can get Whedon to do a rewrite if the script gets a bit hairy, because I trust Whedon to straighten the story out like he did with TA.

__________________"I know I'm asking a lot, but the price of freedom is high, it always has been, and it's a price I'm willing to pay. And if I'm the only one, then so be it. But I'm willing to bet I'm not." - Captain America

I think marvel can definitely handle this heavy influx of characters and all that, still, Spider-Man 3 creeps into my mind (slightly) in regards to all these villains

Understandable; but the difference is that Spidey 3 featured 3 separate villains that were on 3 different story arcs and really had nothing in common and no reason to join forces (other than the basic "kill Spidey"). In the case of IM3, I suspect it'll work better because all the villains will be on the same page. In other words, I think it'll be Mandy as the central villain, but he organizes a team of enemy armors to fight Tony. Including Firepower and Coldblood for sure, but maybe others as well. Who knows, we may even see some big names as well from Iron Man's rogues' gallery.

The sheer volume of villains doesn't really put me off. Shane doesn't have to explore each and every one of them. They can be there for quantity purposes. This is turning out to be bigger than I originally expected. Good.

Understandable; but the difference is that Spidey 3 featured 3 separate villains that were on 3 different story arcs and really had nothing in common and no reason to join forces (other than the basic "kill Spidey"). In the case of IM3, I suspect it'll work better because all the villains will be on the same page. In other words, I think it'll be Mandy as the central villain, but he organizes a team of enemy armors to fight Tony. Including Firepower and Coldblood for sure, but maybe others as well. Who knows, we may even see some big names as well from Iron Man's rogues' gallery.

I honestly believe that's what they're shooting for....we'll probably hear quite a few more of these names in casting in the next few days. But I seriously doubt any of those characters will be developed beyond unnamed henchmen....just guys in nifty-looking battlesuits beating on IM.

considering IM2 was 200Mil budget, it's not like adding that 60 million is anything crazy or extraordinary. We all know how IM2 turned out..

However, I think IM2 was just an aberration in the grand scheme of things.

I think Extremis will fit nicely into their little armor wars story. I wonder if Mandarin is going to get the Armored Adventures treatment now..

Yes, Iron Man 2 cost $200m but a decent chuck of that went to into the pockets of RDJ...this time around his new deal is that he earns 5-7% for every Marvel film he appears in..he's making $50-100m+ on the backend from Avengers alone..not bad considering he has a limited amount of scenes where he's just Tony Stark and not some ILM creation...basically gives up his fee to be put back into the production budget and then get's paid down the line...Iron Man 3 is going to have a budget slightly less than the Avengers which is insane to think about..It's going to be the most action heavy of the franchise which isn't saying much..they're liking going with Extremis so Downey will be front and center, like the first film

personally I'm glad they haven't gone to Ghost or Madame Masque yet.. It gives some hope that Iron Man 4 and Iron Man 5 are possible...Hell A.I.M. needs to get into the MCU and an Iron Man film could be perfect intro for them..